Hackney Mathematics Challenge Final Results

On Tuesday the 17^th of June 2008 two teams of four students represented the Petchey Academy at the final of the Hackney Mathematics Challenge.

After significant mathematical jostling throughout the month of May, the school based rounds produced four boys and four girls who were excelling both in terms of their national curriculum levels and their competencies.

The students selected comprised of:

Boys Team – Isaiah Leybourne, Phillippe Cato, Samuel Thomson, Abdullah Baiyat

Girls Team – Princess Bright, Cordelia Webb, Siddika Tandel, Victoria White

After picking up our lunches, John Greenaway kindly drove the 8 students and Mr Francis to the prestigious Octagon Room, based at the university of Queen Mary, part of the university of London.

Surrounded by history, with the smell of genius in the air, our eight students sat down to compete against the other Hackney secondary schools who had clearly fielded strong teams.

All students started well, but question 7 threw even the most confident of teams. Each team of four was given four different coloured foam rectangles. The rectangles could be broken up and rebuilt as cubes. Both the Petchey teams completed three cubes quickly but differences in strategy were soon to play a deciding role. The boys soon handed in their 3 cubes and gave up on the forth, purple, cube, therefore scoring 3 out of 4 points. The girls, however, soldiered on, under the illusion that handing in 3 would result in gaining no points.

With ten minutes to go, the boys had finished all their remaining questions but the girls were still desperately struggling with the now famous purple cube. Along with the 10 minute warning was a reminder that 3 points could be scored with three correct cubes. The girls, realising time was upon them, quickly moved on, but it was too late. When time was called, after a full hour of competition, the girls had not finished their remaining questions.

After a very nervous break, whilst the scores were counted, students from competing schools quizzed each other concerning their answers.

The results were read in reverse order. In third place, the Petchey girls had battled through and valiantly collected their medals.

More drama was to follow, however, as the Petchey boys were in joint first place with the Bridge Academy. After a tie-breaker round, the Petchey students were fast off their seats and handed in the correct answer to claim the title of Hackney Mathematics Champions.

Congratulations to our House Students of the Month :

Darzi            Henry Enilolobo

Hunt             Darius Bryan

Jenner         Anna Nguyen

Saunders    Alex Lingen

Seacole       Ika Sibanda

Yacoub         Gloria Agyei